


when the snow melts

by izukillme



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:35:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26462023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izukillme/pseuds/izukillme
Summary: In the evening, Ichigo buries that doll in a patch in the woods, marks it as well as he can—which is to say, not very—and falls asleep in the chill snow.In the morning, he runs straight into Toshiro’s arms and doesn’t look back.
Relationships: Hitsugaya Toushirou/Kurosaki Ichigo, Kuchiki Rukia & Kurosaki Ichigo
Comments: 12
Kudos: 28





	when the snow melts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aimless_User](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aimless_User/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY KC ILY <3

Ichigo grits his teeth and looks down at the white snow, pristine and perfect like it always is. It’s the kind of day he hates— _the kind of day you’d have loved_ —and he wants to strangle it. He wants to roll around in the snow and laugh. He wants to pelt the ivory perfection with stones and cry.

Soft footsteps crunch behind him. Ichigo stiffens, but when the person comes into sight he relaxes a little. Dark hair and eyes to match, an unreadable expression on her face—Rukia, one of the few he trusts to see him break.

She doesn’t say anything, just comes up to him, and if he isn’t mistaken there’s gentleness in place of the steely edge her eyes usually have. Ichigo’s chest loosens a little more, and he slumps forward with a soft sigh.

“Are you… okay?” Her voice is soft, but it still feels like it’s a blade ripping through the icy air. Ichigo draws his knees up to his chest and shakes his head.

“Do I look okay?” The words come out raspy and rusty. He hasn’t talked in days, so it’s probably natural, but it still feels weird and wrong.

“No.” Rukia lets out a gentle huff of breath as she sits down next to him on the large rock where he’s perched, sorrowful amusement leaking from the sound. “I figured you weren’t. It’s… not easy.”

“I never thought it would be,” Ichigo whispers. A small, cold cloud forms in front of him— _cold the way you always liked it_ —and he has to resist the urge to flinch. “But it’s just hitting so much worse, even though we’ve known for months now—”

His voice breaks off in the middle, snapping like a rubber string stretched too far. Ichigo supposes that’s what he is too, now—pushed too hard, pulled too much, struggling to hold himself together.

“Ichigo.” Rukia places a gentle hand over his much larger one, and reaches up to wipe the tears that have begun to flow from his eyes. They’re the only warm thing on this day that’s too cold—

 _Just cold enough for you_ —

He doesn’t let himself finish the thought, shutting his eyes forcefully. Rukia’s dabbing, coupled with his closed lids, make the tears stop, and chill air assaults the tracks they leave behind.

“I’m here for you. We all are.”

“ _He isn’t,_ ” Ichigo says bitterly, looking down at the snow around his feet. Without thinking, he lifts his foot up, then brings it down _hard._ “He isn’t, damn it.”

Rukia doesn’t reply, but her small palm is on his back seconds later, and she starts rubbing circles. Ichigo leans forward, face in his hands—and the dam breaks.

Tears, ugly and heavy, gush out in torrents. Ichigo shakes and shivers, moaning as he cries, and Rukia holds him.

 _It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair. Why?!_ It plays in his head like a loop that won’t stop. Ichigo scrunches his eyes shut and tries to break it—and then there is a memory, bright and clear as sunlight glinting off a white mountain-peak.

* * *

_“Ichigo, come on!”_

_Bright aquamarine irises stare up at Ichigo, a smile in them that only he is privy to. That voice is like a siren song, and Ichigo has never been able to resist its lure._

_“Coming, Toshiro.” He lets the shorter one grab his wrist, smiling indulgently as Toshiro drags him along the corridors of their college. He doesn’t know where they’re going or what they’re going to do: all his attention is focused on the boy in front of him, as it always is._

_They end up at the lake, a stone’s throw away from campus. As they stand on the shore, watching the waves ripple, Toshiro turns to him, looking nervous. It’s probably the first time in his life he’s ever felt that way—there’s even a light blush dusting his cheeks. Ichigo raises an eyebrow, but it’s just a means to cover up the fact that his heart’s picked up a beat ten times what it should be because_ **_Toshiro is beautiful._ **

_“Kurosaki,” Toshiro begins, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he uses the formal address he hasn’t in so long, “...Ichigo.” He’s looking down at his feet. Ichigo frowns, truly confused now._

_“Yeah? What’s up with you? Wanna tell me something?”_

_“Mm.” Toshiro raises his head suddenly, eyes glittering. That same smile is back in them, and Ichigo has to wonder at the change. “I love you.”_

_The world slows._

_Then it stops._

_Toshiro’s words play in slow motion in his head._ **_“I love you. I love you. I love you.”_ **

_“What?” Ichigo repeats dumbly. “You what?”_

_“I am in love with you.” Toshiro barrels on, his face fully pink. “I love your scowl, and I love how it turns a little fond when Rukia and her gang does something stupid. I love your laugh, the way it lilts as if it’s water bubbling over a cliff edge. I love your smile, how it comes out like the sun from behind clouds—a sun that fights to be seen, and so the one that’s the brightest of all. I love everything about you, and… I hope this doesn’t ruin our friendship. But I couldn’t keep it in anymore.”_

_Ichigo stares at Toshiro—at the one person who’s always been ‘it’ for him—and thinks that he might die. He doesn’t know what to say, or at least his conscious mind doesn’t, because words are already tumbling out of his lips._

_“Ruin our friendship?” breathes the strangely confident demon that seems to have possessed him. “Ruin it?” It pushes Ichigo’s body forward, lifts his arms to take Toshiro’s hands. “I—I’ve loved you so long, and now you’re saying you love me too… how can you ever ‘ruin’ anything?”_

_“Oh.” is all that Toshiro has to say, his face flaming. The demon—perhaps an angel, come to think of it—makes Ichigo bend, and then he and the spirit come together and then his lips are on Toshiro’s and_ **_oh,_ ** _this is all him now. Toshiro’s mouth is sweet, like the ice candies he so loves, and Ichigo hates them but he never knew they could taste this good._

_They pull away for air, finally, and—_

_“Go out with me!”_

_It comes at the same time, both of them yelling it for the world to hear. A moment of stillness, and then they burst out laughing, both their faces pink from exhilaration._

_Ichigo meets those aquamarine eyes, those eyes that have him prisoner in the ice fortress that is Hitsugaya Toshiro, and that’s when it fully sinks in. He wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. If some charming prince came to rescue him, he’d choose the ice statue that has a beating heart, cling to it until one of their chests stopped rising and falling._

* * *

(The saddest part is that he _did._ The second saddest is that his heart wasn’t the one to go first.)

Ichigo does not speak another word that day, not even when Toshiro is burned—for that would mean he’d have to be at the site. He had not come to the wake and he does not come now to watch the body go up in flames.

(If they had known Toshiro like he had, they would have buried him. They would have put him in an icy grave, with the doll that he pretended he didn’t still sleep next to at twenty-four. They would have let him rest in the snow he so adored.)

In the evening, Ichigo buries that doll in a patch in the woods, marks it as well as he can—which is to say, not very—and falls asleep in the chill snow.

In the morning, he runs straight into Toshiro’s arms and doesn’t look back.

**Author's Note:**

> yes ichi died T_T but at least he's reunited with toshi!! also toshiro had a heart condition which he died of after many months of struggle, which is why the lines 'even though we've known for so long' and the stuff about 'beating heart'  
> please leave me a comment if u enjoyed!!!


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